Time to give Trump his wall?; where will ISIS go next? Going on the cyber offensive, and more

The Democrats need to accept that they lost the last presidential election for a reason, and that their opponent’s main campaign pledge was to tackle illegal immigration, with a wall at the southern border as the centerpiece. And there is clearly an adamant, persistent segment of the public that sees the crisis of illegal immigration as a vital one. They’re not alone. Cast an eye at Brexit Britain, newly populist Italy, Macron’s France, and even Merkel’s Germany as it heaves in response to mass immigration from the developing world. This is a huge force in Western politics in every country. It may be the primary one. Millions of people are on the move right now, fleeing war and poverty and persecution. The vast migration from south to north, from poverty and chaos to opportunity and order in the West may be just beginning. Climate change will surely only make it worse. Finding the right balance between reason and compassion is essential if we are not going to further tear this country apart, or witness ever more humanitarian catastrophes, or see what’s left of the West go under.
So give him his f***ing wall. He won the election. He is owed this. It may never be completed; it may not work, as hoped. But it is now the only way to reassure a critical mass of Americans that mass immigration is under control, and the only way to make any progress under this president. And until the white working and middle classes are reassured, we will get nowhere. Don’t give it to him for nothing, of course.
If all this sounds like appeasing a bigot, I understand. But better to see it, I think, as a way to address the legitimate concerns, fears, and worries of a large number of Americans who feel like strangers in their own land, and whose emotional response to that has been to empower the white nationalist right. It’s good politics too, I’d argue, for both parties in the medium term. At some point, the GOP will need to drop the appearance of bald-faced racism, callousness, and brute force, if they are to survive anywhere outside their base. And equally, the Democrats who are currently posturing are playing a good card badly. They give off the appearance, as Hillary Clinton did, of making no distinction between legal and illegal immigration, favoring de facto open borders, and calling anyone who disagrees with them a white supremacist. Until they recognize that illegal immigration is a huge and legitimate problem, and until they propose a set of actual policy proposals to end it humanely and efficiently, they run the risk of another 2016 in 2020.

Who’s really crossing the U.S. border, and why they’re coming (Stephanie Leutert, Lawfare)
Over the past week, the separation of 2,000 children from their parents along the U.S. border has forced immigration into the national spotlight. President Trump, who initiated the separations and then sought to quash criticism with a muddled executive order, has portrayed the policy as a harsh but necessary measure to stop a wave of migrants “bringing death and destruction” into the United States. At another point, he claimed that migrants want to “pour in and infest our country,” linking those crossing the border to the gang MS-13. Despite what the president says, the situation at the border is much more nuanced. There’s not a flood of people racing across the border. The majority of migrants aren’t dangerous criminals. Many are women and families—and many are fleeing gang violence rather than seeking to spread that violence farther north.

Detention of migrant families as “deterrence”: Ethical flaws and empirical doubts (Adam Cox and Ryan Goodman, Just Security)
Everyone knew that separating children was about deterrence, using them as pawns in a grownups’ game to send a message that those seeking to migrate to the United States should stay out. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said family separation “could be a tough deterrent,” and then corrected himself. “Would be a tough deterrent,” he added. Some officials had tried to avoid admitting this effect of the new policy was its actual purpose, but the Justice Department made clear that this is exactly what the policy is about in the main brief it submitted to a federal court on Thursday.
The use of immigrant detention to deter is neither new nor limited to one political party. It dates back at least to the Carter administration’s treatment of Haitian migrants. It was inherent in Caribbean interdiction policies inaugurated by Ronald Reagan and continued by subsequent administrations, both Democratic and Republican. And at times the goal of deterrence was even made explicit, for example, by the George W. Bush administration in Attorney General Ashcroft’s policy of detaining Haitian immigrants who made it onshore. Detention must be mandatory, Ashcroft wrote, because “there is a substantial prospect that the release of such aliens into the United States would come to the attention of others in Haiti and encourage future surges in illegal migration by sea.”
It is important to separate three issues: (1) whether it is moralto use a particular penalty to deter; (2) whether, as an empirical matter, it is effectiveto use a particular penalty to try to deter; and (3) whether it is legalto use a particular penalty to deter. We address only the first two here. But we should note that, just a few years ago, a federal judge held that the Obama administration’s decision to detain migrant families in order to deter others raised grave due process concerns and violated the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Hungary just passed a “Stop Soros” law that makes it illegal to help undocumented migrants (Zack Beauchamp, Vox)
If you want to know where anti-immigrant right-wing populism can go if left unchecked, you should take a look at Hungary — which, under the pretext of cracking down on illegal immigration, passed a bill that gives the Hungarian government extraordinary powers to jail its political opponents.
This week, Hungary passed what the government dubbed the “Stop Soros” law, named after Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. The new law, drafted by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, creates a new category of crime, called “promoting and supporting illegal migration” — essentially, banning individuals and organizations from providing any kind of assistance to undocumented immigrants. This is so broadly worded that, in theory, the government could arrest someone who provides food to an undocumented migrant on the street or attends a political rally in favor of their rights.
Hungary’s government framed the bill as a check on the influence of Soros, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who funds pro-democracy activism around the world. Orbán has fingered Soros (who is also a favorite villain of the American right) as the source of an international plot to destroy Hungary through migration. He often launches attacks on the billionaire in strikingly anti-Semitic terms.
“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,” Orban said in a characteristic anti-Soros tirade in March.
Cas Mudde, an expert on right-wing politics at the University of Georgia, defines the radical right as possessing three features: an authoritarian approach to law and order, a populist critique of elites as out of touch and corrupt, and a nativist ideology that casts immigrants as a threat to the nation. Orbán, as the “Stop Soros” law proves, embodies all three of these descriptors perfectly.

New fears over Chinese espionage grip Washington (Morgan Chalfant, The Hill) Fresh concerns over Chinese espionage are gripping Washington as lawmakers fear Beijing is gaining sensitive details on U.S. technologies. Lawmakers are scrutinizing the Pentagon over its efforts to keep military secrets safe from hackers, after Chinese actors allegedly breached a Navy contractor’s computer and collected data on submarine technology. U.S. officials stepped up warnings that China regularly steals American intellectual property and technology, through cyberattacks and other means — allegations Beijing denies.

In private briefings, U.S. government raises concerns over Huawei and ZTE (Chris Bing, Cyberscoop) The U.S. government has been quietly warning technology companies about the security risks posed by doing business with Huawei and ZTE, two Chinese telecommunications firms that are closely linked with China’s government. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told CyberScoop Thursday at a national security conference that the government is holding classified briefings to warn private companies of the intelligence concerns. He said the companies that have been briefed are aware of the concerns, but are also “prioritizing market access.”
“I think it’s important for us to do what we can to warn people about the threat,” Rubio said. “I think some of those companies are aware of [the intelligence concerns], but they make the decision that they’ll worry about that later. They want access to 1.3 billion people.”
The news comes as the Trump administration is trying to persuade lawmakers to drop their opposition to a trade deal that would revive ZTE’s access to U.S. suppliers. In April, the Commerce Department barred ZTE from buying components from those suppliers after the company violated an agreement that penalized it for doing business with Iran and North Korea. Trump’s deal would offer ZTE a business lifeline if the company agrees to create an internal compliance board, fire several senior executives and also pay a large fine. Critics say the arrangement won’t do enough to quell existing national security concerns.
“It just honestly makes no sense why anyone would argue or take comfort in new leadership [at ZTE] being enough of a change to allow these companies to buy American semiconductors, for which without them these companies would not be able to operate,” Rubio said.

China-based Thrip hacking group targets U.S. telecoms (Madelyn Bacon, Searchsecurity)
News roundup: China-based Thrip hacking group used legitimate tools to attack companies in the U.S. and Southeast Asia.

Adm. Mike Mullen: Cyber Command should be empowered to go on offensive (Greg Otto, Cyberscoop)
The push to allow U.S. Cyber Command to go on the offensive is welcomed by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, who says that nation-states targeting the U.S. need to pay a “fairly significant price” for their actions. “I’ve thought for some time we were going to have to go on offense,” Mullen told CyberScoop. “Our training says until the enemy starts to pay a price, it pretty much has an open runway. I think that line has to be drawn, and we have to respond, and they need to pay a fairly significant price for what they’re doing.”

Where will the Islamic State go next? (Daniel Byman, Lawfare)
Its defeat, however, was as dramatic as its rise: Today’s Islamic State is a shadow of its former self, having lost almost all its territory along with much of its resources and many of its fighters. But though the caliphate is gone, the group itself is not. As thousands of its surviving fighters disperse, the group has gone underground—for now. Perhaps the question I am asked most commonly is: Where will the Islamic State go next? To answer it requires thinking about the desires of and realities facing the group’s cadre and leadership and in addition to about where the next center of the global jihadist stage will be.

An extraordinarily expensive way to fight ISIS (Defense One)
The tale of a 2017 bombing raid in the Libyan desert that pitted stealth bombers and 500-pound bombs against 70 ragtag fighters.